Donald Glover Had To Wear A Fake Nose To Meet The Original Lando Calrissian

August 9, 2017

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Getting cast as Lando Calrissian in the Han Solo origin story movie is a huge deal for any young actor, but for Donald Glover, it was personal: His parents are huge fans of the wry smuggler Billy Dee Williams brought to life in The Empire Strikes Back, so Glover’s appreciation for the role he’d play in adulthood started at a very, very early age.

That still didn’t fully prepare him for meeting Williams—and neither did the disguise he had to wear in order for that to happen. In a lengthy interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Glover details his face-to-face hang with Williams, which was set up by Lucasfilm, and the fake nose and sunglasses he had to wear to keep from getting recognized. Glover was nervous when they met up, but Williams was, unsurprisingly, the epitome of cool.

“I was like, ‘I’ve always felt like this character could do this, and he represents this, and I kind of feel like he comes from here, and it’s very obvious he has a lot of taste, so maybe he grew up seeing that from afar? Because I’m like that. Maybe he saw it from other planets and was like, ‘I want to be that,'” he recounted for THR. “He just let me ramble on and on, and then finally I was like, ‘So, what do you think?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, I don’t know about all that. Just be charming.'”

Hey, if you’re gonna take on the mantle of one of the most beloved characters in Star Wars history, getting advice straight from the source is a pretty great way to start—even if you have to show up incognito to hear it.